


predictive text

by youcouldmakealife



Series: no expectation of returns [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re breaking my heart, Stephen Petersen,” Gabe says, and Stephen laughs, soft, against his side, but Gabe means it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	predictive text

When Gabe gets up the next morning the place is silent, empty, and he peeks into Stephen’s room, feeling kind of stupid and paranoid when the usual explosion of clothes greets him. The kitchen’s clean, at least in Stephen terms; the crock pot’s been emptied and cleaned and the dishes are in the dishwasher instead of the sink, which says something about how pissed Stephen is at him, because if that says anything, it’s that he’s trying to prove something. 

There’s no practice in the wake of a long road trip and a late night, so Gabe runs the dishwasher and then goes for a quick jog, Vancouver mild enough that he doesn’t even bother with a sweater, head down, heart rate up, kind of stupidly hoping that Stephen’s going to be around when he comes back, like jogging will make it so or something. 

He isn’t, but by the time Gabe showers and navigates his coffee maker, the front door’s opening and shutting. Gabe carefully keeps his back to the kitchen doorway, waits until he hears Stephen’s feet approach, then stop.

“Sorry,” he hears, just barely audible over the drip, and when he turns around Stephen’s managed to make himself small in the doorway somehow.

“C’mere,” he says, and when Stephen shuffles over, hauls him in the rest of the way, hand settling over the notches of Stephen’s ribs, more defined than they should be. 

“Want some coffee?” he asks.

“Had some,” Stephen said. “Went for a walk after I cleaned the kitchen. Had to throw the brisket out.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Stephen Petersen,” Gabe says, and Stephen laughs, soft, against his side, but Gabe means it. 

*

Things are just a little tense, off, not enough that they’d be with anyone else, but they’re giving each other space that Gabe doesn’t personally want or need. Stephen ends up calling off the stand-off, at least as far as Gabe can tell, because he comes home from a short practice the next day and Stephen’s picked up coffee from the Second Cup around the corner, got Gabe a vanilla latte, which he happily inhales.

“You think I could come to the game tomorrow?” Stephen asks while Gabe’s mid-sip, and Gabe swallows, slow, lowers the cup. 

“Yeah?” he asks. 

Stephen nods.

“Yeah,” Gabe says. “Lemme call front office. Do you want to sit anywhere in particular? I mean, there’s the family suite, but if you wanted a seat instead--”

“Gabe,” Stephen says. “I am fully capable of buying my own ticket.”

“I can call front office,” Gabe insists.

Stephen rolls his eyes, but lets him.

*

Gabe heads out long before Stephen, Stephen repeatedly insisting that he can take a cab, he’s done it before, and no, he doesn’t need Hurley’s wife to pick him up, even if it’s on her way. Just _go_.

Gabe does, but not before making sure Stephen knows that he can come down to the locker room after, if he wants, catch a ride home with Gabe, and when he gets to Rogers Arena he makes a point of ensuring Stephen won’t get hassled if he actually ends up coming down after the game. 

It’s Edmonton, so it should be easy, but it isn’t. They eke out a 4-3 win but it’s practically more of a victory for Edmonton, points or no. Even so, at the end they have two points to keep them sitting pretty at the top of the Northwest and second in the Conference, Gabe has an assist, and everyone’s in decent enough spirits. Stephen’s in the hall once Gabe gets out of the room, crouched in front of Garmin’s son, nodding very seriously to something he’s saying, though when Gabe stops short of them he straightens up, flashes Gabe a smile. 

“Caleb only let in one goal in his last game,” Stephen tells him solemnly.

“That’s awesome, buddy,” Gabe says. “You’re going to be better than your dad soon.”

Caleb scowls. “My dad’s amazing,” he says flatly, and his mom puts a hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh. 

“Very amazing,” Gabe backpedals quickly. “He saves our as--bacon.”

Stephen snorts, and Gabe pokes him hard in the side while offering his most innocent expression to Caleb Garmin’s judgemental face. Goalies, man.

They hang around after Gabe extricates himself from the Garmin glare with Garmin the Bigger’s help, not too long, just long enough that Stephen can say hi to a few of the guys he’s met on other trips to Vancouver, meet a few of the others, which mostly goes fine until Hurley offers a hand to shake and then pulls it back instantly with an awkward, pained expression that wipes the smile off Stephen’s face. After that, Gabe nudges him through the door, and they drive home together, silent, but not in a bad way, necessarily, Stephen’s good hand curled around his useless one, holding it to his chest, thoughtful or protective, Gabe doesn’t know. Gabe feels full with something he can’t name, something too big to name, something that kicked in his chest when he came out of the locker room to find Stephen on one knee so as to better address a six year old, came out to find Stephen at all. He keeps looking over at Stephen like he’ll disappear or escape if Gabe looks away too long, some dire prediction, but every time he looks over, Stephen’s still there, the same.

When they get back, they’re keyed up, a simple side-effect of the schedule for Gabe, but Stephen from something else, Gabe doesn’t know what, but he recognizes that agitation in Stephen, that weird Petersen impulse to run that Gabe’s seen so many times, that makes Gabe nervous that he’ll wake up and find Stephen mysteriously gone, even though Stephen’s never run from him before, he runs _to_ Gabe, whether that’s three houses away or three timezones. They migrate to the kitchen without discussing it, and Stephen pulls a couple beers out of the fridge, stuff Gabe doesn’t even remember having, considering something, jaw tight, before he goes and gets the bottle opener, hands it to Gabe so he can pop the tops off, trying and failing to look casual about it, always reluctant as hell to admit he can’t do something, and there’s so much more he can’t do now.

They drink their beer in the same half comfortable silence, Gabe pacing himself to match Stephen, who’s spending more time picking at his label with his good hand, fraying the edges to shit. They talk a little, nothing talk, monosyllables, and when Stephen finishes the dregs of his beer, Gabe takes a last swallow of his own. “You had a good game,” Stephen says, even if they both know that’s not true, and he leans across the table when he gets up. Gabe automatically reaches out to get an arm around him for a loose hug, Stephen’s shoulderblades sharp beneath the spread of his hand, and Stephen’s hair falls over them like a curtain, turning everything gold, before Stephen’s mouth brushes against his, just at the corner. It could almost just be a misaimed kiss to the cheek, but Gabe’s the one who kisses, Stephen’s a hug guy, and it lingers just long enough that there’s no mistaking it for an accident.

Stephen pulls back then, goes upstairs, Gabe’s heart tripped up as he listens to Stephen’s footsteps. He could go to bed now, pretend it never happened, they’ve done that before, they almost succeeded at forgetting it completely, or at least did the best they could. He could go to bed and wait for a moment that’s worth bringing it up, another, better moment, whatever that means, but instead he cracks open another beer, drinks it fast, or at least faster than the glacial pace they’d finished the first ones, cleans up the kitchen a little, just enough to settle himself, trying to ignore how his heart’s in his throat and his hands want to shake, would, if he’d let them. 

He goes upstairs after, and Stephen’s door is slightly ajar, as good a sign as any, even if Gabe’s never had more trouble reading him than he does right now. Stephen’s shirtless, down to a pair of loose sweats, even his splint off, maybe planning a shower, and Gabe sees his bare wrist for the first time, scars livid down to his palm, halfway up his forearm, clean, surgical, like their scars so rarely are, getting stitched up on the bench so they can jump back into the action, but Gabe can’t get immersed in it because Stephen’s looking straight at him, wide blue eyes, caught, like he’d been doing something awful, like just standing there without hiding anything is shameful, and Gabe doesn’t ever want him to think that Gabe’s disgusted with anything about him, because he doesn’t think he ever could be. 

“Hi,” Gabe says, idiotic, and Stephen repeats it, sounding just as stupid, talking like they’re strangers, like they didn’t try and fail to invent their own language when they were eight, getting bored with the details and just reverting back to body language, which they’d always understood. Gabe carefully looks Stephen straight in the eye, nowhere else, not his chest, too thin, or his hand limp against his side, or the mess of pink scarring that’s his wrist, all the familiar parts of his body rendered suddenly unfamiliar. But his eyes are always the same, they’ve been the same as long as Gabe has known him, and they’re challenging now, like they always are before their worst ideas, before Stephen does something stupid because Gabe dared him too, or vice-versa. They stay challenging when Gabe takes strides over to him, when he stands in front of him, toe to toe, though they flutter shut, an indirect loss of a staring contest, when Gabe’s hand curls around his jaw and he leans in to kiss him, hard, on the mouth, no chance for other interpretations.

Every part of Stephen is familiar, even the parts that aren’t, the hinge of his jaw, where Gabe’s lips have rested during chaste kisses, where he learns a bite makes Stephen inhale hard, mouth open, lips wet and pink. The curve of his neck, where Gabe has rested his face during hugs, has clasped with his hand, where he leaves a burn of stubble in his wake, Stephen’s skin pinking up so easily, the way it always has, with a blush or the cold or a sunburn, the tracing of blue veins so pronounced under almost translucent skin. 

His mouth most of all, though it isn’t familiar, they’ve never kissed, Gabe had Stephen leaking into his hand, but he’s never tasted the inside of his mouth. He doesn’t know what he thought it’d be like, didn’t let himself, really, and it’s not like he’d have expected and it’s not unexpected either, the slick slide of Stephen's tongue against his, Stephen’s good hand curled around the back of Gabe’s neck, fingers tangled in the chain that rests against Gabe’s sternum, that he’d toyed with idly ever since Gabe started wearing it at sixteen.

“Stephen,” Gabe says, quiet, hoarse, when Stephen pulls back, and Stephen hisses, “Shut up,” before he tempers it by catching Gabe’s bottom lip between his teeth, a different kind of sting, and Gabe lets him push him down to the mattress, one-handed, barely any strength expended, though he rolls Stephen onto his back once they’re down so that Gabe can get on top of him, resting his weight on his hands so he can see the sliver of blue around Stephen’s blown-wide pupils, the flush that stains his cheeks pink, and travels down his chest, the bob of his throat when he swallows.

Stephen’s hard against his hip, hitching into the weight of Gabe almost unconsciously, and that’s familiar enough, Gabe’s done this part before, trying not to think of Stephen when he did it, the heat of an erection against his hip, the inside of his thighs, in his mouth, choking and spluttering while his roommate half laughed half stuttered out an apology, he got all the teenage embarrassment out when he was a teenager, at least, though he doesn’t know if Stephen ever did, if he’s had a hand on anyone’s cock other than his own, other than that aborted first time with Gabe, because they don’t talk about it. Gabe doesn’t really want to know the answer.

Gabe follows Stephen’s flush, down his throat, across the planes of his chest, stopping only when Stephen tugs at the back of his shirt with one hand, and then only long enough to pull his shirt over his head before he presses his mouth against Stephen’s stomach, the slight softness there that’s usually only present during the offseason, Stephen breathing fast, uneven, tilting his hips up like Gabe needs a hint, like that isn’t his next destination. He’d tease but he doesn’t have the patience for it, helps Stephen slide his sweats off, and Stephen doesn’t protest the help for once, cock slapping against his belly, leaving a smear of pre-come, before Gabe ducks down to get it in his mouth, curling a hand around Stephen’s hip to keep him still, or more still, Stephen’s hips nudging up, impolite and impatient and Gabe’s drowning in him. He wants to. 

Stephen gets a hand in Gabe’s hair, a fitful clutch, his other lying open, palm up, supplicant, near his hip, and he tugs when he’s close, nudges his hips up again, like he’s not sure if he wants to be polite and let Gabe up or shove himself down Gabe’s throat, and Gabe takes it, shuts his eyes when Stephen comes in his mouth, lets Stephen pull him up, insistent, more in intent than practice, straddles his hips and kisses Stephen’s panting, open mouth while he unzips his pants one-handed, shoves them and his boxers down as far as he can with his legs splayed wide. He gets a hand around his cock, gets himself off before Stephen’s breath stops stuttering, streaks Stephen’s chest like a placeholder.

He gets off Stephen only when his breath starts to slow, when he knows he’s got to start feeling heavy, finds his t-shirt at the edge of the bed, swiping it over Stephen’s chest a few times while Stephen half-heartedly huffs at him, falling back onto Stephen’s right side once he’s kicked off his pants, tugged his boxers back up his hips.

They don’t say anything, but that isn’t new, and Stephen’s eyes are half shut, enough that Gabe can tell he’s drifting, so he gets up to turn the light out, crawls back into bed with Stephen, finding Stephen’s wrist in the dark, resting his fingers over the scarring, the slowing rhythm of his pulse. Wonders if Stephen can feel it.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [tumblr!](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/)


End file.
